In Search of Lost Time, Marcel Proust

How Proust Can Change Your Life

I got into Proust because of Alain de Botton’s delightful book, How Proust Can Change Your Life. This is still one of my favorite books to read, and reread, and I believe it captures the best of Proust.

Where Proust is brilliant, I think, is his passionate interest in phenomenology - pages devoted to describing the process of falling, or almost falling, or just awakening from sleep, the "madeleine" experience of vivid, flashback memory that seems as if the past has temporarily re-inhabited the present moment. A novel is both a strange way to undertake an examination of the experience of consciousness more appropriate to a psychological or philosophical study, but also a particularly well-suited format, since the novel can reveal the subjective experience of its characters.

Proust has an amazing gift, often reminiscent of Jane Austen, of observing the most subtle human interactions, often where one thing is said, but another is felt. And it is worth reading the 7-volumn novel, if only for his utterly unique style and minute attention to such details.

Where Proust is not brilliant - in my opinion, and I realize there is always a degree of arrogance in criticizing a great author - is in his depiction of the relationships of men and women, which forms an enormous part of the novel. When Austen makes an observation about human nature, it tends to ring true for me, but I found I frequently raised an eyebrow at Proust's: he assumes a universality to what seems to me to be a very particular, individual experience of love, if you can call it that. 


The novel is transparently autobiographical in many ways (and part wishfull fulfillment) in others, and at least to me, almost impossible to understand without knowing something of Proust's own life - I took a break in between Vol. 2 and 3 to read William C. Carter's biography, which I recommend highly. Proust suffered from intensely acute sensory nerves (I blame the deprivations of 1870-1 siege of Paris when Proust's mother was pregnant), and bizarrely torturous love-hate relationship with his mother, and semi-closeted homosexuality, all of which make their mark on the novel, as I read it. 

One of the problems with this is that Proust transposes the possessive insanity of his maternal relationship on to his romantic relationships, and then generalizes to all mankind, as well as the difficulties and conflicting emotions of homosexual relations in a time when homosexuality was not socially acceptable and mapping them on to heterosexual relations, and generalizing from it. I am not the first to find Proust's female characters (Gilberte and Albertine in particular) somewhat implausible and certainly not representative of women I know.

Most of all, Proust is missing the compassion that should come with intense insight into human interactions. Austen always treats her characters, even the most egregious, with a gentle humor, but Proust's account of a similar social engagement will be scathing in its depiction of hypocrisy, and the way his characters treat each other is frequently cruel (Mme. Verdurin's "little clan" is particularly horrid) and robs the book of pleasantness it would otherwise have.

It is also unclear to me, particularly in the "Albertine" section, which I found the hardest to read, how self-aware Proust is. There is an intense self-absorption in his feelings, particularly his jealousy, and the ways in which he is cruel and controlling, and I am not at all sure if this is an author (older, wiser) describing the folly of his previous self, or someone reliving (and fantasizing about) what he felt and did, or would have liked to have said and done. His insistence on possessing, controlling, spying on Albertine long after he has admittedly ceased to love or even respect her, becomes masochistic. The surprise is not that Albertine flees, but that she stays so long, but I can't tell whether Proust, the author, understands his own role in perpetuating his, and her, misery.

My other criticism of Proust as an author, although this is a more difficult one to make, is that in many instances he appears to have simply plagiarized from real life, to the degree that people were recognized and recognized themselves when the books were published. Baron de Charlus is indisputably a brilliant, fascinating character, but Proust appears to have almost "lifted" him from the very real Robert de Montesquiou. Of course, Thomas Mann, and many other great novelists, have done the same thing, and one has to say they do make for characters that feel intensely "real", but there is something...distasteful about stealing someone else's private identity and working it for one's own ends. Robert de Montesquiou reportedly was not at all pleased with his depiction.


Each of the volumes just about falls off a cliff: I have never had the same experience of reading the last page and being surprised not to find another. There is only the barest sense of a plot, and because of this things never feel quite finished (in fact, Proust never did completely finish rewriting and inserting new paragraphs into his work. I suspect he would have gone on doing this, regardless of how long he lived). After you read the novel, it is difficult to come away feeling "done", and so I read some of the secondary criticism available. Some, like me, find his analysis of male-female relationships dissatisfying, others seemed to feel they were right on target and spoke to the human condition. I think the best essay I read compared Proust's style to Cubism, and this gave me another window into the novel and its value. Proust will often attribute a motive to a character, or even to his narrator, but then follow it with a series of "or"s - not one or two, but four or five different, motivations, which is very strange. As a reader you want to say, "You're the author, don't you know?", but I found I gradually became accustomed to this and even grew to appreciate his compulsively presenting the same speech or action from many different angles simultaneously: there were so many co-existing possibilities that none of them could be ruled out, even for the "I" of the narrator. And really, how certain are we that our own motives are as singular and easily identifiable as we believe?

Reading a novel like In Search of Lost Time makes strong case, I think, for e-readers. If at any point I had held in my hand the physical reminder of how far I had to go, how much remained (how little had been accomplished in terms of plot), I think I would have been tempted to chuck the whole project, but one keeps hitting the "next page" button until suddenly there is no next page, and then you download the next novel, blissfully ignorant of what a long, dull slog most of it will be ahead. I say "dull" tongue-in-cheek, but the meanderings of Proust's mind, constantly revising itself, do not make for a cliff-hanger, page-turner, who-dunnit of a book. One of the things one can say as a recommendation for reading In Search of Lost Time is that it has an Everest-like quality that puts everything else in perspective. I find it easier to read other long, not-very-gripping, novels (Melville's very strange Pierre springs to mind) because of Proust. It is amazing what you can read when you let go of the need to be interested in every page - that sounds odd, no doubt, but when one ceases to expect to be enthralled at each step, one relaxes and has the liberty of reading something that may have cumulative value.

If you want the "short version" (best of Proust), I recommend, first, Alain de Botton's book, which I have said, draws lessons from Proust's style and work in a fashion that is clever, light, and charming. To read Proust himself, I would recommend the first and last volumes as representative of the whole and containing the best material. There is a quite good film, Time Regained (1999) with Catherine Deneuve and John Malkovich (in French!), among others, which deals principally with the events of the last volume. There are time and perspective shifts and symbolic elements, which make the movie initially difficult (I recall it made no sense to me the first time I saw it), but which I felt (after finishing the novel) best captured the flavor and main themes of Proust's work.

***

I've been on a biography reading kick lately, and I find I owe an apology to Proust. I criticized him in my review of In Search of Lost Time for creating a wholly unbelievable mismash of a relationship between the Narrator and Albertine, which dominates the central volumes of the book, but I actually just ran across an almost identical description in Cary Grant's ill-fated seven month marriage to Virginia Cherrill whom he obviously had ceased to love, but whose possible, imaginary, unfaithfulness tormented him. He did, in fact, have her followed, the way Proust describes the Narrator setting spies and asking around after Albertine.

The House of Mirth, Edith Wharton

Gillian Anderson in House of Mirth, 2000

The House of Mirth had been on my Netflix queue for a long time, and I was so struck with the movie when I saw it that I picked up the book, which turned out to be even better - this is usually, though not always, the case.

 Anderson is phenomenal as the central character, Lily Bart, to the point of making one regret all the years her range as an actor was wasted as David Duchovney's co-star. The book, and the movie, are full of amazing moments of subtle interchanges in which people are able to use a very few well-chosen words to convey something entirely different. 

Wharton's writing is precise: each chapter has clear purpose and the feeling of being as necessary as the links of a chain. There are beautifully memorable character descriptions in the book:

The first two weeks after her return represented to Mrs. Peniston the domestic equivalent of a religious retreat. She "went through" the linen and blankets in the precise spirit of the penitent exploring the inner folds of conscience; she sought for moths as the stricken soul seeks for lurking infirmities. The topmost shelf of every closet was made to yield up its secret, cellar and coal-bin were probed to their darkest depths and, as a final stage in the lustral rites, the entire house was swathed in penitential white and deluged with expiatory soapsuds.

Grace Stepney's mind was like a kind of moral fly-paper, to which the buzzing items of gossip were drawn by a fatal attraction, and where they hung fast in the toils of an inexorable memory.

His [George Dorset's] face, with its tossed red hair and straggling moustache, had a driven uneasy look, as though life had become an unceasing race between himself and the thoughts at his heels.

It was, however, only figuratively that the illumination of Mrs. Hatch's world could be described as dim: in actual fact, Lily found her seated in a blaze of electric light, impartially projected from various ornamental excrescences on a vast concavity of pink damask and gilding, from which she rose like Venus from her shell. The analogy was justified by the appearance of the lady, whose large-eyed prettiness had the fixity of something impaled and shown under glass.

and brilliant moments of psychological insight:

Moreover, by some obscure process of logic, she felt that her momentary burst of generosity had justified all previous extravagances, and excused any in which she might subsequently indulge. Miss Farish's surprise and gratitude confirmed this feeling, and Lily parted from her with a sense of self-esteem which she naturally mistook for the fruits of altruism.

...it was characteristic of her [Lily] to feel that the only problems she could not solve were those with which she was familiar.

The movie, as much as I liked Anderson and the gorgeous costumes and settings, makes significant changes, including including conflating Grace Stepney and Gertie Farish whom the book specifically describes as differing from each other as much as they differ from the elegant and beautiful Lily. There are also radical, probably unforgivable, changes made to the end of the book.

The actual end of the book, however, is itself dissatisfying. There is a brief encounter in Lily's last few days with a character named Nettie Struther, who, though her background was unfortunate, has managed to become poor but happy through the love of a good man and a baby. The book, as I read it, presents this as a possible solution to Lily's insoluble problems that she has missed in her quest for social status and an aesthetically luxurious life, which rings false and seems surprisingly sentimental for such a penetrating novel. If it had been more clearly Lily's vision - another form of romanticizing her problems away - that could have been interesting, but I don't see that separation of author from character in the way this scene of domestic fulfillment is presented. When I tried to put it in words to my dad, he described it with the phrase “a coda of self-delusion,” which perfectly captures it. Certainly, money (and the lavish lifestyle that goes with it) never make up for a lack of warm, authentic human interactions, but neither does love make up for circumstantial hardships, like continual poverty, which can often put stress on and splinter human relationships. And not all relationships are uncomplicated; most contain their own disappointments and stressors.

Bizarrely enough, the character of Rosedale, to me, is the great achievement of the book, although I suspect Wharton herself would not have seen it this way. He is presented initially in the book as a Jewish business man on the make: "a plump rosy man of the blond Jewish type, with smart London clothes fitting him like upholstery, and small sidelong eyes which gave him the air of appraising people as if they were bric-a-brac" (Ch. 1). There are a number of small but distinct ethnic slurs (phrases like "the instincts of his race") embedded in the text, and then there is Lily's disgust with Rosedale's manner and clearly mercantile view of the world.

Throughout the book there is a strong contrast between the aristocratic elite and the up-and-comer nouveau-riche: the circle of the Gryces, Trenors and even the unscrupulous Berthe Dorset, are presented as innately superior to the upwardly mobile Brys, Gormers, and Mrs. Hatch. Lily herself is the product of a higher, more cultured social background, with its tastes and expectations, but having lost the money to support the lifestyle. She attempts to master the offenses to her sensibilities that contact with the lower social classes produces in her as she moves downward through the social strata. But Rosedale, who if anything, personifies the monied social climbers who are infiltrating the New York elite, turns out to be one of the most likeable characters, because he is sincerely upset by Lily's circumstance, and pragmatic enough to be ready to do something for her, and honest enough to come to the point in a way that the more refined Lawrence Seldon is unable to speak out in the most critical moments. Lily, and the book, I think, conclude with holding Rosedale in a high respect, even though Wharton never glosses over his lack of good breeding. He is coarse, in his manners, in his speech, in his view of the world, but he is genuine and ready to act.

Wharton passes on, leaving the closing chapters for Seldon to make his appearance at Lily's bedside (and wish he had said or done something sooner). There is some romantic nonsense about feeling closer to her in death than he had in life ("at least he HAD loved her...if the moment had been fated to pass from them before they could seize it, he saw now that, for both, it had been saved whole out of the ruin of their lives.") But I think it is remarkable that Wharton, along the way, showed a human and even admirable side, to a repellent character who continued to hold the basest, most avaricious view of life as an exchange of goods.

The Woman in White, Wilkie Collins

Available through iTunes or Amazon

I had just finished Great Expectations and was looking for something around the same period when I thought of Wilkie Collins. I am more familiar with The Moonstone, and thought I would try The Woman in White. This turned out to be one of my favorite novels I've ever read.

What I think is absolutely BRILLIANT about this book is Collins' choice to present the narrative as a series of letters, diaries, legal statements, etc. from multiple characters. You piece together the unfolding mystery from these sources as you go, and each piece itself is somewhat mysterious until it all comes together towards the end when details that were obscure become clear. You are also continually shifting perspective, seeing characters you've met before through another's eyes, or finally getting to hear them speak for themselves. (I listened to this on audiobook from iTunes - the British actor Roger Rees reads Hartright's narratives - and I enjoyed the book even more by hearing the different characters vocally acted out. I HIGHLY recommend this.) The changing of voices in Collins' narrative is so well done that each character has a distinctive style and reflects the prism through which he or she views events: the housekeeper, the widow of a clergyman, refers sententiously to her late husband's sermons; Mrs. Catherick dwells on the details of her expensive watch and gifts given to her by Sir Percival. Elderly Mr. Fairlie has no room in his mind for anything but his hypochondria, and his narration of his disinterest, along with the repeated attempts of Louis to assist, are hilarious in the beginning, and horrifying later on when we realize how much is at stake.

The shifting of perspective within the book also means that Collins is able to maximize the suspense within the story: by now we the reader have seen enough of the Count to know his true nature, but are in a housekeeper's narrative in which he is lauded as a kind and saintly man, which leaves the reader horrified, helpless to warn or intervene as evil falls upon the innocent. I remembered maybe a quarter of the way into the book that the story seemed familiar - I had seen a 1997-8 Masterpiece Theater version - but the multiple secrets Collins hints at throughout the plot are only a part of the story, which turns out to be largely the seemingly impossible problem of proving the case legally, and Hartright and Miss Halcombe's efforts to gather sufficient evidence while avoiding detection. So even if the reader is in the position of having privileged information, the drama is in watching the characters suffer and react.

If you have had the equivocal fortune to have seen the Masterpiece Theater "Woman In White", please endeavor to scrub it out of your mind. It's a wonderful cast, with Tara FitzGerald (although she was better in "The Tenant of Wildfell Hall") and Justine Wadell (who is better in "Wives and Daughters") and James Wilby ("Tale of Two Cities", "Maurice", "Howards End", etc.), but the adaptation is terrible, including changing key elements of the plot and relationships between characters. There is also a seedy, degraded, humiliating aspect to this movie, which steals much of the plot away from Hartright and puts it into Marion Halcombe's role, but neither Hartright nor Marion ever forget themselves to this degree. They are champions of virtue, when virtue has been trodden down and looks as if it never will rise again.

Marion, Marion, most wonderful of characters, Marion! She is a truly original creation - more so, even, I think, than Count Fosco. It is aggravating to see Hartright leaning on her in adversity, and yet so smitten with her lovely, but far more conventional, half-sister. Laura is brave, but Marion is courageous. Collins often uses "manly" or "man-like" to describe her, and this is probably the best that can be said for such a strong female character in 1859. At least, if Walter Hartright does not appreciate her intelligence, noble character, and courageous heart, Count Fosco, the undisputed genius within the book, sings her praises at every turn as the most remarkable woman he has ever met.

Great Expectations, Charles Dickens

It is always worth meditating in an extended way on the folly of arrogance. And if only for that, Great Expectations is worth reading, but I really enjoyed this, and far more than I remembered from hearing it when I was much younger. There is so much going on at multiple levels in the book, but I will just touch on the elements that struck me particularly this time.

When I think of Dickens, I tend to expect characters like Matthew Pocket, or Pumblechook, Mrs. Joe, or Jaggers: utterly distinctive and memorable, broadly sketched with sharp definition, like caricatures. There are words, or an image, which define them, like Mrs. Joe's pin-studded apron front, and that's about all you can expect from them: they are consistent. This is, of course, wonderful for peopling a novelistic world - very often in the real world our only contact with most people is a slight one in which one dominate trait might stand out - but it has always bothered me. It is not to my taste. And I wonder about the effect of immersion in a novelistic universe in which good people are Good, and bad people are Bad.

But Magwich and Miss Havisham really are extraordinary, and they lift the whole book with them into something much more complex. Though introduced as a terrifying and repulsive criminal, Magwich has moments of the reader's understanding and sympathy. Miss Havisham's dismay over Estella and her repentance in the end lift her, too, out of being one-note, and she has a kind of tragic grandeur. In trying to exact revenge for her unrequited love by breaking others' hearts, she comes to realize she has created a monstrous force of nature. Estella is so completely lacking in human warmth that she cannot love her adopted mother, and Miss Havisham sees she herself is no different than her victims, unable to call forth love where none exists. 

Both characters, Magwich and Miss Havisham, were notable to me this time for their experience of filial ingratitude. I'm not sure the reader is meant to sympathize with this perspective, but something about the experience of being a parent made these scenes particularly poignant. They are so sure they will be loved for what they have given, and their adopted progeny seem want to do their best to shake them off. It's a useful reminder that our expectations of other people's emotions are often as inflated and misguided as Pip's hopes of his future wealth, and that giving does not necessarily generate a returning warmth of feeling. 

Much of the later part of the book dwells on Pip's regrets for his lack of gratitude and appreciation of his true benefactors - the people in his life, Joe and Biddy, who gave him unconditional love, and of whom he has spent most of his earlier years ashamed of as poor, or simple, or ignorant. Joe Gargery is a nice example of appearances being deceiving: he may be illiterate and too common in his manners and dress for Pip when he is trying to be a gentleman and separate himself from his old life at the forge, but throughout it is clear Joe is a noble, good-hearted man with dignity who deserves our admiration and respect. Likewise Biddy, who Pip comes to realize is by far the best of women he has known. And I always appreciate an author's emphasis on inner beauty and true worth when most of our lives it is too easy to judge based on the externals. But there is a danger here, I think, in romanticizing ignorance and poverty, somewhat akin to Rousseau's "man in the state of nature," and what happens when you do that is that civilization, and education, that foundational tool of civilization, can start to seem like a corrupting force. If only Pip's eyes had not been opened to the grander world of Miss Havisham and her house and Estella... If only Pip had not built himself up on his "expectations" of great wealth... He has eaten of the Tree of Knowledge, and can never go back to his simple good nature as a boy.

"How much of my ungracious condition of mind may have been my own fault, how much Miss Havisham's, how much my sister's, is now of no moment to me or to any one. The change was made in me; the thing was done. Well or ill done, excusably or inexcusably, it was done."
Ch. 14

Of course having a good heart, and integrity, and inner nobility, are human qualities that know no bounds of wealth or status. Of course everyone is deserving of our consideration and respect as human beings. I do think, though, that something can be said for education - and I should note that in the book Biddy works tirelessly at her own education and that Joe accomplishes learning to read and write - but I believe that education does refine our sensitivity, and your odds of growing into a person with a compassionate and generous heart are increased rather than diminished by it. 

My favorite line from Great Expectations is in Chapter 33. I can only say by way of apology that being a parent of a young child seems to skew what you find humorous:

"Mrs. Pocket was at home, and was in a little difficulty, on account of the baby's having been accommodated with a needle-case to keep him quiet... And more needles were missing, than it could be regarded as quite wholesome for a patient of such tender years either to apply externally or to take as a tonic."

Two on a Tower, Thomas Hardy

"Unexpectedly grand fruits are sometimes forced forth by harsh pruning." - Ch 35.

At least, this is the closest I can come to summarizing Hardy's philosophy and why it is perhaps worth reading this lesser known novel about astronomy and two very "star-crossed" lovers. We ought to introduce into common usage the simile "As unlucky as a Hardy heroine" to express repeated and extremely inopportunely timed misfortune.

Lady Constantine is (effectively, then literally) a widow in her husband's great estate, which includes an old stone tower that a local young man, Swithin St. Cleeve, has co-opted for use in his astronomical pursuits, and the plot of the book follows the ups and downs (mostly downs) of their romance. There are so many circumstantial set-backs that for a time one can believe all the two lovers need is a break in their run of bad luck until one begins to suspect, closer to the end, that perhaps even if all went well, their internal differences would drive them apart. And this is where, I think, the novel is at its most astute: Lady Constantine is nearly thirty and throughout the book she tends to be more aware of social setting, public opinion, the ramifications of her actions (let us call this the "broad" view), while Swithin, just twenty, is described with his head-in-the-clouds scientific pursuits, but also with what might be called a kind of naive selfishness (let us call this the "narrow" focus). In love, he is more passionate, but also somewhat short-sighted. He tends not to see (or consider) the impact of his actions on others, or foresee future events. This gap between the "broad" and "narrow" seems to me to be a pretty accurate description - at least in my experience - of relationships between women and men, and especially so when there is a difference in age. This is not to say, of course, that this is always the case, just my own general observation, but I think it is the cause of a great deal of unhappiness, particularly in women (or girls) who are young enough not to understand. It should probably be put on high school reading lists, if only for this valuable life lesson.

Lady Constantine is also interesting as she pertains to what I would call the "freedom for" question. Like Madame Bovary, she is another literary case study of the ionized heart. They ostensibly have everything (marriage, some social stature in the community, sufficient means to live without laboring), and yet are curiously incomplete. With such needs met, they have leisure, they have freedom, but for what? They don't seem to know what to do with themselves. Often the description is "bored", but I think the boredom is not a surfeit, but an unaddressed longing. They lack purpose, meaning, a compelling passion. It is like an atom which has lost its complement of electrons and is hence charged and highly reactive. As such, they make exciting subjects, ripe for drama - often of the tragic variety - but the existential question behind it persists, for men and for women: freedom for what? One regrets in Lady Constantine's case that she could not fall in love with astronomy, rather than with the astronomer, although Hardy would find it difficult to imagine a woman fascinated by pure science, but whether we can pick and choose what lights up our brains with meaning, what we give our heart to, is an open question, and not nearly, I think, so easily answered as Sartre would have it. We will see this "freedom for" question again - some other extreme examples include Henry James' "Portrait of a Lady" and Ibsen's "Hedda Gabler." It is very easy to answer in the negative - both end with a sense of wasted opportunity; there are far fewer attempts to answer in the positive.  

Why read Hardy:
Given that the plot of "Two on a Tower" starts to sound like a soap-opera with secret marriages, he-loves-me-he-loves-me-not, and characters receiving improbable letters at the last minute from estranged relatives, why read Hardy? His books tend to be dismal, his rustics are not humorous, his protagonists tend to plod through life weighed down into dullness by crushing societal burdens. Hardy goes to extraordinary lengths in "Two on a Tower" to make Swithin, but in particular Lady Constantine, utterly above reproach: they are the most circumspect, cautious, rational people imaginable. Everything is thought out, argued, reasoned, and the circumstances are arranged so as to make each choice appear to be the best possible. Character is unimpeachable.

I think what Hardy is doing is presenting extenuating circumstances in defense of socially unacceptable situations - Lady Constantine finds herself pregnant with an illegitimate child, who is only technically illegitimate because of a mistake in the exact date of when her absent husband died in Africa, and of course, the secret marriage, which has turned out to be bigamous and therefore invalid, and nobody knew about it anyway... When I was younger, I used to glance immediately at a woman's hand when I saw she looked pregnant to see if she was wearing a ring - this is a horribly pompous and judgmental thing and I have no idea why I did it. Later on I realized that pregnant women very well might not wear wedding rings (your fingers swell, weight-gain, etc), and later than that I realized that it really wasn't my business at all. It really is no concern of mine, and it shouldn't change how I act, or even how I look, at a person. Peace be to all - life is challenging enough without judging one another. Hardy is a sort of apologist for Stage 2, and his books have a kind of "oh, she put on extra weight!", of course she was blameless, and would have been obviously blameless, but there were these unfortunate circumstances that can be explained. It's not as desirable in an author as Stage 3, but it beats Stage 1.

Here is my favorite line from the novel, when Mr. Torkingham endeavors to corral his unruly, off-key village choir:

"'Better!' said the parson, in the strenuously sanguine tones of a man who got his living by discovering a bright side in things where it was not very perceptible to other people." - Ch 2.

The edition of "Two on a Tower" I used is an audiobook from Audible.com for sale on iTunes. It is read by Michael Kitchen.